I had always thought I would be permanently wedded to my Blackberry, as I am very much a keyboard man rather than a touchy-feely man, so to speak. But I got so frustrated by the 15 minute email delays (we do not have a Blackberry server thingy at TechMarketView) and the dire web browser and tiny screen, I finally gave up.
But what to replace it with?
An Apple iPhone 4S – arguably the ‘best’ smartphone on the market? Well, judging from my learned-lawyer brother’s experience, perhaps not – I don’t think he’s made a mobile call yet on his 4S that hasn’t broken up or disconnected mid-sentence (at least certainly not to me). In any event, I already have an iPod for my music, an iPad for my poor-man’s laptop substitute, and – most importantly – a dinky Nokia 6303 ‘dumb’ phone for my calls. Yes, I prefer to have a separate phone that works reliably any time anywhere with great battery life.
What about the just released Samsung Galaxy III? Well, I had heard stories that Android hasn’t quite got its act together working with Microsoft Office365 (which we use at TechMarketView) and I just did not want to take the risk – email is ‘mission critical’ for me. (By the way, you can see the views of our esteemed chairman, Richard Holway on the Samsung/Apple race in today’s Times).
In any event, all I really needed was a decent mobile internet device for email and web browsing without all the fuss and feathers that comes with app stores and videos and stuff. Our IT manager suggested the Nokia Lumia 800. He’d been using one for some months and reckoned it. So I took the plunge.
Well, one week in and so far so good – it does what it says on the tin. It runs Windows 7.5 and the interface with our MS365 service works faultlessly (yes, I do realise that ‘b’ does not necessarily follow ‘a’ – but this time Microsoft got it right). And the browser is nippy – and I get satnav (Nokia Drive) for nowt. All the app store stuff is there too (but nowhere near as voluminous as Apple’s or Android’s) but the only app I have actually downloaded is (now Microsoft’s) Skype – which works fine. Oh – and finally I have a built-in FM radio (yes, I do listen to Radio 4) – something that Apple still resolutely refuses to build in to its kit.
It may well be that Nokia (and indeed RIM) is destined to live out the rest of its life as an also-ran in the smartphone marketplace. But for me it was a ‘horse for courses’ decision. So, I may not be the most fashionably accoutred ‘smartphoneista’ – but I am a happy one!